Louise saw Black Swan last week with a friend. She thought I'd enjoy it but wasn't sure I should go by myself...
"You don't want people to think you're just there to see the muff-diving."
"I'll be OK," I promised her. "I won't wear my shabby mac." But just in case, I chose a local arthouse as my venue, rather than sitting in the multiplex with all the other wankers.
Black Swan (my finger keeps wanting to type 'Sawn') is mental. It is grand cinematic melodrama of the kind we haven't seen since the golden age of Hollywood. Barbara Hershey shows us her very best Bette Davis as the overbearing mother of Natalie Portman's ambitious yet repressed ballerina Nina. (Nina The Ballerina? What is this, Dr. Seuss? No, but subtlety isn't really an issue in this film.) Vincent Cassel gives wonderful French Bastard as the director looking to cast Nina's Swan Lake. Winona Ryder shrieks and glowers as Cassel's former muse. Mila Kunis smoulders and smirks as Nina's bad girl rival, Lily. (You can tell she's a bad girl by her opening line: "Did you suck his cock?") They're stock characters made good through the scenery-chewing relish of the actors. The only truly multi-dimensional role here is that of the lead... and it's that which disappoints.
Is it just that I don't like Natalie Portman? I want to give her a chance, but none of her adult performances have come even close to realising the potential she showed in Leon. I won't even mention the unholy trilogy, but she was wooden in V For Vendentta, wet in Garden State, and acted off the screen by Gyllenhaal and Maguire in Brothers. All the Oscar buzz around this performance raised my hopes that finally she'd come into her own - the cold, shy, insecure girl who dreams of letting go and giving in to her darker side, that's a dream role, right? Add to that a director determined to push his actress to her limits - from physically demanding ballet performances (at which she undoubtedly excels) to onscreen masturbation and self-mutilation... not to mention the aforementioned girl-on-girl action... and you can see why the Academy are excited. But the problem is, I just couldn't warm to her. And I certainly couldn't empathise with her, which for a role like this is pretty much essential. She just reminded me of the kind of hysterical female cliché Humphrey Bogart would have slapped some sense into back in the less-enlightened day.
Despite this (and your Natalie Portman mileage may vary), Black Swan is still a hugely enjoyable romp - particularly when everything goes radio-rental in the final act. Darren Aronofsky is a smart director with plenty to say and loads of visual flair... who knows what he'll make of The Wolverine.
As for the muff-diving and masturbation? Awkward. Not because of what was happening on-screen, but rather what was happening next to me in the cinema. A girl in her early 20s who'd come to see the film with her mum and was obviously embarrassed to be watching such things in her presence... instead turned her face away from the screen whenever anything remotely raunchy was going on... and towards me. For god's sake, woman... STOP STARING AT ME WHILE I'M WATCHING NATALIE PORTMAN FLICK THE BEAN! It's just not right.
